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Samuel Hoar (1778-1856)
}} Biography Samuel Hoar (May 18, 1778 – November 2, 1856) was a United States lawyer and politician. A member of a prominent political family in Massachusetts, he was a leading 19th century lawyer of that state. He was associated with the Federalist Party until its decline after the War of 1812. Over his career, a prominent Massachusetts anti-slavery politician and spokesperson. He became a leading member of the Massachusetts Whig Party, a leading and founding member of the Massachusetts Free Soil Party, and a founding member and chair of the committee that organized the founding convention for the Massachusetts Republican Party in 1854. Hoar may be best known in American history for his 1844 trip to Charleston, South Carolina as an appointed Commissioner of the state of Massachusetts. He went to South Carolina to investigate and contest the laws of that state, which allowed the seizure of sailors who were free African Americans (often who were citizens of Massachusetts) and placed into bondage, if such sailors disembarked from their ship. Hoar was prevented from undertaking his appointed tasks by resolutions of the legislature and efforts of the governor of South Carolina, and was escorted back onto a ship by Charleston citizens fearing mob violence against the agent from Massachusetts. News of the thwarting of Hoar inspired anti-slavery political reaction in Massachusetts. Marriage & Family Hoar was a born in the town of Lincoln, Massachusetts, and as an adult lived in neighboring Concord, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1802, and was admitted to the bar in 1805. On October 13, 1812 he married Sarah Sherman (1783-1866) of New Haven, Connecticut. Sarah was the youngest child of Roger Sherman (1721-1793) and his second wife, Rebecca Prescott (1742-1813). Roger Sherman was a signer of United States Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Both Samuel and his wife share a common ancestor, their Great-Great-Great-Grandfather John Hoar (1619-1704). * Hoar, Elizabeth S (1814-1878) - (July 14, 1814 – April 7, 1878) was engaged to Charles Chauncy Emerson (1808–1836), youngest brother of Ralph Waldo Emerson and young law partner of Samuel Hoar; Charles died of tuberculosis before they could marry, and she never married. She was an intimate of the Emerson, Hawthorne and Thoreau families. R.W. Emerson invited Elizabeth into the Transcendentalist community, and she aided in producing their journal, The Dial. * Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar (1816-1895) - (Harvard class of 1835) was Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and US Attorney General for President Ulysses Grant; later nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by Grant, but the nomination was not approved by the Senate; he married Caroline Brooks of Concord. * Sarah Sherman Hoar (1817-1907) - married Robert Boyd Storer (1796–1870), a Boston, Massachusetts importer trading with Russia, and Russian Consul at Boston.1112 * Samuel Johnson Hoar (1820-1821)- died in infancy. * Edward Sherman Hoar (1823-1893) - (Harvard class of 1844), married childhood neighbor Elizabeth Hallet Prichard of Concord, and was an intimate of Henry David Thoreau (the Thoreau family lived across Main street from the Hoars, in several different houses over the years). Edward with H.D. Thoreau accidentally allowed a cooking fire to get out of control, and caused more than a 100 acres of forest to burn on April 30, 1844, along the Sudbury River in the Fairhaven Bay section of Concord. Edward accompanied Thoreau on some of Thoreau's hiking and canoeing excursions. Edward Sherman was a California state district attorney for the fourth Judicial district in 1850. He returned to Massachusetts in 1857.19 His extensive collection of pressed plants collected mostly from Concord, Massachusetts, including a significant number of specimens that Thoreau left to him, were donated by his daughter in 1912 to the New England Botanical Club herbarium housed at Harvard University. * George Frisbie Hoar (1826-1904) - (Harvard class of 1845) moved to Worcester, Massachusetts as a young adult, and became a prominent U.S. Senator representing Massachusetts for 27 years, from 1877 until his death. References * Roger Sherman (1721-1793)/Immigrant Ancestors - Hoar / Sherman Family Ancestors * - Wikipedia Category:Massachusetts State Senators Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts Category:Massachusetts Whigs Category:Massachusetts Republicans Category:Massachusetts National Republicans Category:Massachusetts Free Soilers Category:Sherman family Category:National Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives